Wednesday, November 11, 2015

Shelley – Poetical Essay on the Existing State of Things – 1811

An incendiary lost poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley, in which the young poet attacks the “cold advisers of yet colder kings” who “coolly sharpen misery’s sharpest fang … regardless of the poor man’s pang”, was made public for the first time in more than 200 years on Tuesday. It was only attributed to him 50 years after his death and was later rediscovered in a private collection in 2006. It has been bought by Oxford University for an undisclosed sum.

The 20-page pamphlet, which is the only copy known to survive, will also be available online.
Shelley wrote the work during 1810 and 1811, while studying for his first year at the university.
It addresses issues such as the abuse of the press, dysfunctional political institutions, and the global impact of war.

Printed by a stationers on Oxford High Street, it also contains a 10-page poem of 172 lines written under the alias of a "gentleman of the University of Oxford".

Shelley was just 18 and in his first year at Oxford University when he wrote his Poetical Essay on the Existing State of Things. The 172-line poem, accompanied by an essay and Shelley’s notes, was written in support of the Irish journalist Peter Finnerty, who had been jailed for libelling the Anglo-Irish politician Viscount Castlereagh.

Printed in 1811 by a stationers on Oxford High Street, under the alias of “a gentleman of the University of Oxford”, it was only attributed to Shelley 50 years after his death, when copies were already said to be impossible to find. The work was considered lost until it was rediscovered in a private collection in 2006, and has only been viewed by a handful of scholars since.

Now the 20-page printed pamphlet – the only known copy of the text in existence – has been acquired by the Bodleian Library. The library has digitised the text to make it available to the general public for the first time. It will display the physical copy, which is the 12 millionth book to join its collections, until December.

The themes Shelley addresses, said Oxford as it made its announcement, “remain as relevant today as they were 200 years ago”. Michael Rossington, professor of Romantic literature at the University of Newcastle, said it was a “tremendously exciting” moment, with the poem revealing Shelley’s “early interest in the big issues of his day and his belief that poetry can be used to alter public opinion and effect change”.

“This substantial poem has been known about for years, but as far as we know it hasn’t been read by any Shelley biographers or scholars since it was composed, and people are intrigued to find out exactly what it’s about,” said Rossington.

In the poem, Shelley calls for “a total reform in the licentiousness, luxury, depravity, prejudice, which involve society”.

A fiery denunciation of war and oppression, the abuse of press and dysfunctional political institutions, his poem goes even further, asking if “rank corruption” shall “pass unheeded by”, mourning how “Millions to fight compell’d, to fight or die / In mangled heaps on War’s red altar lie”. He also fulminates against the “cold advisers of yet colder kings … who scheme, regardless of the poor man’s pang, / Who coolly sharpen misery’s sharpest fang, / Yourselves secure.”

The poet and former children’s laureate Michael Rosen, who has agitated for the poem to be made public since it was rediscovered in 2006, said that at times in the poem Shelley strays close to sedition, despite the young writer’s assertion at the start that the poem is not “subversive of the existing interests of Government”.

“It was dangerous of Shelley to write that ‘Man must assert his native rights, must say / we take from Monarchs’ hand the granted sway’”, said Rosen.

“The poem has great topicality for now with its mention of ministers supporting war and foreign oppression … Edward Said was at pains to point out that he couldn’t find any objection to colonialism and imperialism in English literature. Here it is. Shelley spends a good few lines on pointing out the oppression of British imperialism in India,” said Rosen, highlighting how Shelley writes that “The fainting Indian, on his native plains, / Writhes to superior power’s unnumbered pains.”

“Even as Lynton Crosby comes up with yet another phrase to sustain this government in power (‘we must live within our means’), this poem appears. Wonderful reminder that ’twas ever thus,” said the poet.

Rosen pointed out that the poem also sees Shelley write of government advisers, “To whose fell breast no passion virtue brings”, who have the power to “breathe / O’er all the world the infectious blast of death”, and to “Make a tired nation bless the oppressor’s name”.

Rosen said the poem was full of “portable triggers, lines of political outrage for people to catch and hold”. He added: “Political writing is often like that, but in times of oppression and struggle, this is no bad thing: a portable phrase to carry with us may help us.”

Shelley’s poem begins:

DESTRUCTION marks thee! o’er the blood-stain’d heath
Is faintly borne the stifled wail of death;
Millions to fight compell’d, to fight or die
In mangled heaps on War's red altar lie.
The sternly wise, the mildly good, have sped
To the unfruitful mansions of the dead.
Whilst fell Ambition o’er the wasted plain
Triumphant guides his car—the ensanguin’d rein
Glory directs; fierce brooding o’er the scene,
With hatred glance, with dire unbending mien,
Fell Despotism sits by the red glare
Of Discord’s torch, kindling the flames of war.
For thee then does the Muse her sweetest lay
Pour ’mid the shrieks of war, ’mid dire dismay;
For thee does Fame’s obstrep’rous clarion rise,
Does Praise’s voice raise meanness to the skies.
Are we then sunk so deep in darkest gloom,
That selfish pride can virtue’s garb assume?
Does real greatness in false splendour live?
When narrow views the futile mind deceive,
When thirst of wealth, or frantic rage for fame,
Lights for awhile self-interest’s little flame,
When legal murders swell the lists of pride;
When glory’s views the titled idiot guide,
Then will oppression’s iron influence show
The great man’s comfort as the poor man’s woe.
Is’t not enough that splendour’s useless glare,
Real grandeur’s bane, must mock the poor man’s stare;
Is’t not enough that luxury’s varied power
Must cheat the rich parader’s irksome hour,
While what they want not, what they yet retain,
Adds tenfold grief, more anguished throbs of pain
To each unnumbered, unrecorded woe,
Which bids the bitterest tear of want to flow;
But that the comfort, which despotic sway
Has yet allowed, stern War must tear away.